When fear spreads: individual- and group-level predictors of deportation worry among Latino immigrants

Abstract

ABSTRACT What shapes Latino immigrants’ worries surrounding deportation? Using five waves of the Latino National Survey, we examine this question by considering immigrants’ own legal status, their social background and the legal vulnerability of their national origin group. We find that while individual legal vulnerability heightens deportation worries, social and group markers also have independent and intersecting associations with immigrants’ worries. Disadvantaged social traits such as lack of English language proficiency and lower levels of education are associated with higher rates of deportation anxiety regardless of legal status, while also differentially shaping the effects of legal status. In addition, while all national origin groups are likely to report worrying about deportation, immigrants from national origin groups at greater risk of deportation tend to worry more, regardless of individual legal status. Finally, decomposition analysis suggests that individual legal status does not have greater explanatory power over deportation fears than social markers or group-level legal vulnerability. Even while being undocumented remains significant in shaping deportation fears, these fears vary widely and systematically within and across legal and social categories.